This weeks episode of Boardwalk Empire was entitled “Battle of the Century.”  This was of course referring to the fight between heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey and his french challenger Georges Carpentier which took place in New Jersey on July 2nd 1921.  This would be the only battle that took place during the episode and we didn’t even get to see it (but we did get to hear the real radio broadcast from 1921, that was pretty cool, but what else would you expect from Scorsese who used Jake LaMotta’s real fight audio in Raging Bull, but I digress).  That is my only complaint, because the rest of this episode was excellent but come on, show us Dempsey knocking him out.  I understand the title was about the fight since that was the actual name of that particular bought, but what we, the audience, witnessed was the build up to the inevitable battle between Nucky and Jimmy.  Last week Nucky declared that he was stepping down and therefore James was the new king of the boardwalk.  This week we saw what the power does for our young protagonist and how quickly that power seems to be slipping away. [Read more...]